There are four things in this world that you can look at endlessly: how fire burns, how water flows, how Aaron Rodgers chooses his team for the new season, and how the bank faithfully sends you notifications about the status of your account – even if there are less dollars in this account than Rodgers threw touchdowns last year. After all, these are banks – perhaps the most conservative area of the contemporary world.
When dealing with banks, you often involuntarily imagine yourself as a small cog in a huge soulless machine, but how nice it is sometimes, just by turning this cog the wrong way, to see how it stalls and enjoy your petty revenge! For example, as it was in the case of the user u/xboxgamer2122 on Reddit’s Petty Revenge community.
The author of the post once opened an investment bank account to save money for their children’s education
Image credits: Expect Best (not the actual image)
Many years later, when the youngest of their kids graduated, the customer decided to close the account out
Image credits: u/xboxgamer2122
Image credits: RODNAE Productions (not the actual image)
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Image credits: u/xboxgamer2122
It turned out there was $280 in the account, but the bank employee told the client there would be a $135 closure fee
Image credits: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual image)
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Image credits: u/xboxgamer2122
Then the author changed their mind and left the account open, with only a buck in it
So the Original Poster (OP) says that at one time, they opened an investment account in a bank in order to save money for education for their children. Time passed, the kids got older, entered and graduated from college, and one day the author of the post discovered that the bank kept sending them monthly statements for the account, even though there was only $280 left there.
Being a prudent person, the OP assumed that the bank was regularly wasting time and money by notifying the client about the status of the account they no longer needed, so they simply went to the local branch to close it and withdraw the cash. There, however, the OP fell into the hands of an investment specialist, because, as it turned out, in accordance with banking rules, ordinary customer service employees could not do anything with investment accounts.
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And so, after laying out the essence of their case, the OP suddenly found out that, in accordance with the same banking rules, they had to pay a fee for closing an account in the amount of $135. Yes, you heard everything right – almost half of the available money. When the OP politely asked if this was appropriate, they ran into a whole fifteen-minute lecture from the expert who attempted to sell them life insurance, asked how much they had in other accounts, and advised them that they could probably do better performance-wise if the customer transferred it all to his investment branch.
In the end, the author of the post just got tired of listening to this and made a brilliant decision in its simplicity. They did not close the account at all, but just withdrew everything but one buck from it. To hell with them, the OP probably thought – let them send their regular statements, since they have such rules… And now, two years later, in the original poster’s own words, they have $1.03 in their account, about which the bank regularly notifies them every month…
Image credits: Anete Lusina (not the actual image)
In fact, according to banking regulations, as Forbes states, it doesn’t cost anything to close a checking, savings or money market account. However, the original poster, according to themselves, had an investment account, so the bank in this situation may actually issue a penalty. In any case, paying a fee in the amount of almost half of the funds remaining there looks completely illogical.
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At the same time, it is possible that the original poster initially opened some specific type of long-term investment account, the contract for which implies an early withdrawal penalty if you close an account before its maturity date. An example of such an account can be, for example, an IRA – individual retirement account, where the IRA termination fee is usually charged.
We must also say that many commenters just agreed with the original poster that banking is actually pretty damn complicated, and in order to close a regular account, sometimes you have to literally go through all nine circles of hell. Well, folks in the comments also ironically noted that the investment manager turned out to be not a very good specialist, as in two years, he was able to bring only 3 cents of income per $1 in the account. “You should call him once a week to ask how your investment is doing,” some commenters sneered. So what do you think, is it worth calling?
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